Are You Too Busy to Build Your Business and Grow Your Profits

It’s been known to happen.

The problem is that each time you’ve said that about an action item that would have increased your sales or improved your profits, it cost you money.  In this edition of the Profitability Thinking Newsletter, I take a look at ways to get more of the items that build your business and improve your profitability done.  As always, I’d enjoy reading commentary about the article.

From personal experience operating my own business, as well as observations working with my clients, there seems to be a LOT to do when you’re in business for yourself.  There are client meetings, client work, prospect meetings, networking, relationship building, putting out fires, new products, new projects, project management, team development, team management, hiring, firing, managing finances, marketing, websites, newsletters, blogs, sales, operations, errands, banking, finance, accounting, bookkeeping, collections, bill payment, taxes, legal issues, e-mails, follow-up calls, customer service calls and on and on and on.  I’m getting tired just writing all these activities. With all these things to do, how can you actually run a growing and profitable business?

The answer is simple in concept and difficult to do.  The short answer is that you CAN’T do all of it yourself.  Once you accept that premise, the questions become what activities do YOU do and what do you do with the rest of the activities?  The answer to those questions is simple:

Did I hear you say, “Uh Huh!?  Good luck with that?”

The funny thing is, the above highlighted formula for operating your business is correct.  Did I mention, simple in concept? Execution is where things can become difficult. The typical reason for execution difficulty is that we’re so buried doing day to day activities that we lose track of what we’re trying to accomplish and why.  We get so busy with what E-Myth author Michael Gerber calls “doing it, doing it, doing it, that we lose focus. We get lost in the hypnosis of day to day activity. As many of us can attest, getting caught up in the day to day can be easy to do, hence the difficulty with focusing on activities that build your business and grow your profits.

Although mechanically doing low value, day to day activities is very common among entrepreneurs and professionals (and corporate types as well), getting lost in the day to day will likely not get you where you want to go.  If you’re doing day to day activities and not finding the time to do activities that would build your business and grow your profits, you would do well to change what you’re doing. Changing how you handle your business activities is not necessarily intuitive and typically doesn’t happen by itself.  It takes intention, discipline and a plan. So here are some thoughts as to how to focus on activities that build your business and grow your profits.

I’ve beaten this to death in previous blogs and newsletters, but if you don’t have a written business plan yet, this is the first step.  Spend 2-4 hours and do it. Know what you want to accomplish. Keep the plan short and actionable, with listed and quantifiable high value activities that lead toward business and profit growth.  If you need help, get with someone who knows how to build an actionable business plan.

You can change it as you go, but use the plan as a touchstone that keeps you on track.  MEASURE your activities and results against the activities and expected results in the plan.  Are you doing what you set out to do? Are the results of these activities what you expected?  Review and measurement of a written plan are ways to actually accomplish what you set out to do. 

Create some kind of accountability system to keep your focus on the high value activities in the plan and their results.  Become a member of a mastermind group, find a fellow entrepreneur as an accountability partner or get a coach. Make meetings with your accountability person or group regularly scheduled and calendared.  Then don’t cancel because you have something more “important” to do.

That means two things:

• Connect with your reason to be in the business you’re in.  Having a “why” creates energy for the what.
• Have a list of high value activities that support your business plan and make sure that activities on your list are only high value activities that lead to business and profit growth.  If you’re unclear what high value activities are most appropriate for your situation, then work with peers or a consultant to identify those activities.

Remember all those things required to run a business that I listed above?  Many, but not all, of those things still have to be done. Just not necessarily by you.  So either eliminate any activity that doesn’t move you toward your goals, or find homes for those activities that can’t be eliminated.  Delegate or outsource non-core activities that have to be done so you can free up your time to do high value activities that build your business and profits.  You will hear yourself say less often that you “don’t have time.”

Your team can be outsourced virtual resources or employees.  Either way, your team should have the capabilities to handle those non-core activities that you are delegating or outsourcing.  If not, you won’t be able to delegate or outsource, or you’ll create problems in your business by doing so.

Review your client meetings and client work to see if there are things you can do to be more efficient in delivering client value, and look for areas where you are doing low value client work because you feel comfortable doing it.  Your goal is to provide high value services to your clients with the least time and effort possible.

Once you have freed yourself from the day to day, you can then do the necessary amount of high value activities that will build your business and grow your profits, such as:

• Networking and relationship building meetings.
• Consistent client and prospect follow-up.
• Setting up marketing that is effective and measuring its performance.
• Working with professionals to establish useful financials and internal metrics, and then reviewing them consistently.
• Making sure your AR is current, bills are being paid and cash flow is positive.
• Doing high value client activity and working to enhance your client’s experience.
• Building your team’s capabilities.
• Managing your sales team and sales process.
• Streamlining processes to be more cost effective and client friendly.

Creating a successful business is about more than hard work.  Don’t confuse activity with results. Stay focused on activities that will build your business, grow your profits and create the business you want.  You work hard.  Following these recommendations will help you get paid for the hard work you do.